Ben Williamson and the Tampa Bay Rays made it way too far to run the risk of suffering only the 20th sweep in World Series history. 

Williamson’s pinch-hit, walk-off single on Tuesday night kept the Rays’ season alive, though they’ll still need to win three straight against the MLB-best Brewers. It didn’t matter that Tampa Bay trailed 3-2 entering the bottom of the 12th inning, nor that the backup infielder had mustered only one hit in his first 18 postseason plate appearances. 

Even longtime Rays season ticket holders may not have been intimately familiar with Williamson, a second-year utility man who played 88 regular-season games. 

“The mindset of the team is to be ready when your name’s called, and that’s what’s made us good the whole year,” Williamson said. “And to be able to come through in a spot like that felt good.”

Rallying from a 3-0 deficit is itself incredibly rare in Major League Baseball, but winning three straight when down 3-1 isn’t exactly a common sight, either.

How many MLB teams have forced a Game 7 after falling behind 3-1 in the World Series?

As of October 2026, eight teams have forced a Game 7 after trailing 3-1 in the World Series. The 1912 New York Giants are in their own group, as they played an eighth game before losing to the Red Sox. However, the series went that long because darkness forced a tie in Game 2. 

Counting those Giants, let’s look at how the nine teams in question fared:

Are we the only ones intrigued that we’ve had only one 3-1 World Series comeback since the start of 1986? Then again, things have been relatively competitive over the last 40 years, with only three clubs — the 1992-93 Blue Jays, the 1998-2000 Yankees, and the 2024-25 Dodgers — claiming consecutive World Series titles.

Don’t listen to anyone who says Major League Baseball lacks competitive balance, especially not when we’re about to watch a team with a sub-$150 million payroll win the World Series.

But in all seriousness, the Rays are in relatively uncharted territory. None of those nine situations involved a team trailing 3-0, and there have only been two teams in MLB postseason history — the 2004 Red Sox and 2020 Astros — to even win three straight and force a Game 7; those instances came in the ALCS, and only the Red Sox completed the comeback.